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Weather or not to train…

So I’m navigating the maze of securing venues for goalkeeper training for the spring, and it’s 60 degrees outside. 60! It’s January 14th! I wish I would have known that when I booked indoor space for indoor GK training for the winter! It’s been so mild here in VA, that we could have been training outside this winter. But, there’s just no way to know…

Indoor training vs. outdoor training in winter. There’s lots of pros and cons to each one. Here in VA, you can get by, albeit a few bad days, with staying outside. My feeling is that if you roll the dice and stay outside all winter, I’m bound to get 2-4 sessions cancelled because of snow, rain, sleet…just misreable conditions – losing out on valuable time. But, if we stay inside, you’re pretty much guaranteed to get all your schedule completed. Although keepers need to be able to deal with poor weather conditions, in my opinion, training kids under the age of 13 in really poor weather provides no upside. I don’t refer to the typical rain, I’m referring more to the sub freezing temps and precipitation that follows. They’re more concerned about being frozen than pushing through it. Teenagers are a different story though….LOL!

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy a good hard training session in the driving rain, sloshing about and concentrating on pouncing, 1v1s, low balls and bouncing balls. But below freezing GK training in VA is not what I feel is beneficial for the player. It’s always a difficult call when the weather is iffy. At what point do I as a coach lose the players focus? Several times I have cancelled a training session only to have the weather turn and it is quite nice. I always try and keep the players health and safety in the forefront of my decision. If training today means losing the player to sickness for the next session, did we gain anything? What are the positives and the negatives….always a tough decision.